Well I have listening to the New Sensor Tung Sol reissues for a few hours and there is no grain or grit or harshness I expected. Cleaner in the mid-bass so low bass may seem a little stronger, not sure about this though. Interesting build, they do not use mica as supports insted using what looks like spring wire to support the elements. I do not know if this was a Tung-Sol thing but I can imagine that it could help with resistance to micro-phonics since the guts of the tube are not locked in place to the tube envelope.

I agree, the Tungsol EL34B microphonics seem pleasantly low relatively speaking, perhaps contributing to my sense of "tighter" and "more defined" sound. I found they still benefited from good vibration management even so, smoothing out more.

The Winged C tubes that ship with the Torii look to me like a variation on the same design theme with spring wire suspension from the glass. If your Tungsols are like mine, they will change a fair bit over time, but the cryo thing may well contribute to this for me. It was worth the wait though. They sound really good fully burned in.

I hear your thought on mid bass/bass relationship appearing to give more low bass. With the tube set I have right now they do seem to go lower too. But most beneficial for me, they generally appear a little tighter and more balanced in the mid and low bass... well, tighter throughout really, and I am glad to have that as a choice as I play around with different tubes.

Well the Torii still every once in awhile seems a little bass heavy but it is related to particular recordings. I am considering changing the location of my equipment rack out of the corner and buying a maple butcher block platform. The MDF shelf may be contributing to a low frequency resonance. Will, I guess this is the Torii taking me to school on fixing the problems with the 'whole' system. The 6DJ8's I bought were japanese RCA's and have proven very nice. I have been able to bring my speakers closer together now that the bass is not over the top and this has allowed depth to expand. As I write this I am listening to a Naxos recording of Kodaly Sonata for Cello and Piano. The cello sound is HUGE and the piano is unrestrained. Music flows from this amp easily and without boundary.

Sounds like things are getting close. I listen to a lot of cello and find it to be a great instrument for tuning the mid bass. If cello recordings are heavy to my tastes, I figure I have a problem to solve. From my explorations, anything can contribute …room modes; synergy (or not) with your source, speakers, cables, power and tubes; but also tastes. I prefer an open and detailed sound that is not cool, and it sounds like your tastes may be in this general area??? If you tune the system toward this end, within the foundation of what you have, you will likely get more ambiance, detail and clarity, while reducing heaviness…For me, in this room, they tend to go hand in hand. Reduce low intensity/increase openness and detail.

I think you said earlier that you had no muddle or boom per say???? If this is the case, and you are close as-is to your tastes, and not too clear/bright, you can probably compensate for now with tubes and speaker placement.

Sounds like bringing the speakers together helped. Can you bring them further from your wall??? Away from corners??? Change the angle a touch??? Getting the rack out of the corner (where bass wants to stack up) sounds like a good idea. And feet? I found the sorbothane ones to contribute to low-mid bass muck. As do vibrations in general. I don't have maple blocks, but probably should. I do use Herbies Audio Labs lampblack balls in Isocups, with stainless bases under the Torii, and tenderfeet under components. http://herbiesaudiolab.net/isocup.htm Also, I use his tube dampers. Can't say if these are the best solutions, but they smoothed out my system quite noticeably by reducing vibration/microphonics.

VRs offer great potential to incrementally tune the sound. Did you get some OB3s? If so, some OC3 or OC3Ws will further reduce low-mid/bass heaviness, and OD3 even further. As you go up the alphabet, they progressively lower the grid voltage, toning the amp down, and with that…reduce density and tighten bass.

Also the OC2 input tube regulator can be replaced with a OB2 relaxing your input tubes. Voltage Regulators are cheap and I would go further with those. With an OD3 and OB2, you would have the amp toned down considerably from stock.

Tube play. I really enjoy it, but not everyone does. Lon for one! But to get some beautiful sound....the above is the most efficient way I know to see if you can be satisfied before going to room stuff. None of these tubes are expensive.... in fact to get pairs of all of them together would be less than a just OK pair of interconnects.

I am noticing A LOT of BASS from my tiny S.F. Auditor monitors so far with my new Torii Mk III w/ VCAPS so much so that I have turned the Rel sub down to one or two notches above zero. WOW. I am at about three hundred hours of break in or so and have turned the bass control down to about half on the Torii and the treble up almost all the way. The bass is starting to tighten more and more. Very interesting. I hope it keeps getting tighter cause these little 6 inch drivers were never boomy at all. Why is the bass such a bugger to get under control. Without the sub though there isn't enough bass. Overall I can't make any kind of judgement as to what's what's until full break in. The amp is sounding better by the day and is the coolest piece of audio equipment I have ever owned by far. Amazing work once again to Steve and his staff. I am not easily impressed either. Any input on the bass would be good or opinions, I saw Lon say something about content being bass heavy but most of my stuff has a lot of everything. Put on some Marcus Miller and listen to that, it'll amaze you, I saw him live and was blown away.

There are a couple things I can add to previous posts in this thread, and hopefully more will chime in.

I asked Steve about the bass knobs and I think this is how it goes. The amp, in microseconds, responds with little power adjustments as speaker driver impedance rises and falls. And since the bass knob adjusts this interplay based on speaker impedance, it can work differently with different speakers. So full clockwise can be the tightest bass on one speaker and the loosest on another. With the bass pot full one way the bass driver will have less cone movement, and full the other.... the most cone movement. Once this is determined for your speakers, in between is as expected. Hopefully this will help with your exploration.

My Torii III had the same design as yours, but without the bass pots. This sounded like an interesting tool, so I asked Steve if he could put them on my amp, which he did.

And it could totally be coincidental, but I got bass problems after the mod....weird boom stuff, lack of definition and odd tonal transitions with bass heavy stuff...all crud I had not had before (or had sorted out many months earlier). BUT, at the same time, I am burning in a new DAC and new cables! Also, the Torii mods presumably need burn in..........AND..... On top of all this, one of my four bass speaker drivers went defective about the same time I started all this!!! I repaired a tear in the ring near the cone edge, and it sounds surprisingly good as I wait for new drivers, but I can't trust it as a reference. So I have way too many variables now. My stuff sure sounds to me like burnin has sounded in the past though. And, as with yours, it is all getting better day by day. The thing is, that your Vcaps and their notoriously long burnin needs may not be telling you the whole story yet.

So, I put in some OC3W regulators, some Groove Tube EL34s (that appear to have less low bass), played around with cabling and foot placement, and all is well as I wait out the burnin.

As a test, I just put the tungsol EL34s back in, and I am still getting some minor unresolved bass and minor boom, but it is much less than last week, so I am thinking it will all be OK!!! With less tenacious caps, a couple hundred hours seems to be the burn in thing in my experience.

This Decware gear is so revealing, stuff that would not show up with lesser equipment seems like it can be all in your face as it sorts out. But then, you also may be like I was back when I first got my Torii, and find that your system/room might need some adjustments to accommodate this very amazing amp! Who knows until the burnin is done!!!@#$%^&*(

Well, mine is all working in very well! Back to the Tungsol EL34s, ZDAC and cables burned in for the most part, and new MG drivers sounding very good though only about a week of play on them. Torii bass knobs mod and whatever burnin they may have had, now working as expected. The bass is deep, tight and real now, and the imaging brilliant, though I am still running Sylvania OC3Ws as regulators.

Amazing stuff, amazing sound, and I am over burn/break in altogether!!!!! Too much pain after things have been exquisite.